Postcard arrives after 55 years

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CHICAGO, May 3 (UPI) -- A Virginia man whose postcard from his mother took nearly 55 years to arrive has been offered a free trip to the Chicago aquarium pictured on the card.

Scott McMurry, 71, said the postcard his mother sent him from the John G. Shedd Aquarium in Chicago in 1957 apparently became lost in the mail for nearly 55 years before showing up at a Florida home with a similar address to the Georgia address listed on the card, the Chicago Tribune reported Thursday.

Elizabeth Fulcher, 33, the woman who received the card April 18, posted a picture of the item on Facebook and soon her friends were able to locate McMurry in Virginia.

McMurry said the Shedd heard of the postcard's long trip and offered him an all-expenses-paid trip to Chicago to see the aquarium, which he had never heard of until receiving the postcard.

"If you would have asked me two weeks ago, I would have said it would never happen to me," McMurry said. "It's sort of like winning the lottery."

A U.S. Postal Service spokesman said officials do not know what happened to the card between 1957 and its arrival at Fulcher's house.